Time Heals All Wounds
by WoollyOne
Summary: After Rogue ran away from home so she wouldn't hurt her sister Belle, Magneto and Mystique come for Belle. She finds out she's a mutant, and is rescued from Magneto's base by the X-Men. Little does Belle know, her sister helped rescue her. When the sisters realise, they become inseparable, but don't know that together they are more powerful than ever before. And in more danger.
1. Prologue

I run out the door, seeing my sixteen-year-old sister about to head out the gate.

"Anna! Please, don't go!"

She spins around and watches as I run to her, stopping about a metre away from her.

"Belle, if I stay I'll only hurt you."

"Then take me with you!"

"I can't do that. You need to stay here. You'll be safe here."

"Anna, what am I supposed to do without you here?"

"Belle, you need to promise me that you won't do anything stupid."

"Am I ever going to see you again?"

"God, I hope so."

She carefully hugs me, making sure she doesn't touch my skin, and then she leaves. I collapse in the dust, falling to my knees and sobbing, knowing I'll probably never see my sister again. Twelve years old and my sister has already left me. I pick myself up and wipe the tears from my face, heading back inside to face my parents.

"Why didn't you stop her?" Dad demands.

"She was too quick, I couldn't catch her," I lie.

"Isabella D'Ancanto, you tell me the truth this instant," Mum yells, taking a step towards me. "You're lying and I know it, so tell me the truth."

I sigh, knowing that I'm definitely grounded after this. "I let her go."

"You what?" she whispers. "You let her leave?"

"I had to, Mum," I try to explain. "I tried to stop, honestly, I did, but she wouldn't listen."

Mum sighs. "If you ever try anything like that, then you'll be in deep, deep trouble young lady."

"Yes Mum," I say, heading up to my room. As I go up the stairs, I hear Mum and Dad having a rushed conversation, and I listen from the stairs where they can't see me.

"She'll have to come back sometime," Dad says. "She can't just go off on her own."

"You know full well that once she's made her mind up she doesn't change it. Face it, our daughter's gone."

I've heard all I need to hear, so I go to my room and flop down on my bed. I look over at my walls, all four of them covered in photos of my friends, me, and my sister. In amongst the pictures are words, poetry and lyrics from my favourite songs. Our favourite songs. We did everything together, went to the same school, liked the same music and movies, went to the same martial arts classes, and went running together; we were hardly separable. But then something changed. She locked herself in her room for hours at a time, she hardly ate, she rarely spoke, and she wouldn't touch anybody. Not even me. She swore she'd protect me, but now she's gone. She told me to stay, and I guess I'm just going to have to trust her. I'm very distant from my parents, but extremely close to Anna. She didn't tell me what happened to her until a couple of months afterwards, though. She told me that she was a mutant, and that weird stuff happened when she touched people, and that one day she was going to go somewhere they could help her. I just didn't think it would be today. She's very strong, and I should have known that she'd leave as soon as she could. I thought she'd at least wait until she was a legal adult, just another two years, then maybe she could take me with her. But as a teenage runaway I'd just put her in even more danger. I'll stick it out for a few more years and then I'll go and find her.

Two years after my sister left, I see it on TV. A mutant strapped to the Statue of Liberty, another two mutants watching with glee as she screams. No matter how much I don't want to believe it, I have to face the truth. The tortured soul on the tower is Anna-Marie D'Ancanto: my sister Anna. Now it's settled. I have to go after her. I have to rebuild my fractured life. After she left, something started happening to me, and it's not good. I've been doing some research recently, and I found some information about the mutant X gene. It's carried by the male, but there has never been a case of two siblings to both have a mutation, unless they're twins. Whenever somebody touches my skin, they get a small electric shock, but it's been getting stronger lately. So I've left the house and locked myself in the treehouse that Anna and I spent so much time in together as little girls. We were so innocent when we were up here when we were younger, but we still used it until she left. We'd sit up here and just talk about things. This is where she told me she was a mutant. This is where I've found out that I'm a mutant. We still had the plastic furniture up here from when we were little, but I moved it out and brought up a mattress, pillow and blankets so I can sleep up here. It's not too big, but bigger than most. It's about two metres by three, with a lockable door and windows, and just big enough for me to live in. I come down when my parents go to work, to get some more clothes and food, and to have a shower and use the bathroom.

Two days after I saw her on TV, they come for me. I'm inside, watching cartoons, when I hear a loud knock on the door. I open it, feeling the sweltering heat rush into the room. I nearly faint when I see a woman with blue skin, red hair and yellow eyes standing on the doormat with a gun trained on me. Behind her is an older man with grey starting to creep through his hair and a strange looking helmet adorning his head. They look incredibly strange, yet I recognise them immediately. They're the two mutants that put Anna on that tower and tortured her. I looked into it and found out that their names are Magneto and Mystique. They're very powerful mutants, they tortured my beloved sister, and now they're standing on my doorstep. I take a tentative step backwards and slowly raise my fists, trying not to let my fear show.

"What do you want with me?" I ask in a shaky voice.

"You're coming with us," Magneto says firmly.

"What if I don't want to?" I say rather stupidly, considering they have a gun pointed at my heart.

"Then my finger might just slip," Mystique says, taking a confident step towards me.

"I don't care. I'm not going anywhere."

I gasp as the gun fires and a bullet enters my chest. I look down and see a little bit of blood and the end of the bullet still poking out through my skin.

"Oh, it's just a tranquiliser dart, dear," Magneto says in a falsely sweet voice. "You'll wake up in a few hours."

My vision goes blurry and I feel myself slowly becoming paralysed, but I remain conscious long enough to watch as Mystique roughly slings me over her shoulder and carries me to a black armoured van and tosses me in the back. A few seconds later, the engine roars to a start and we drive off.

Then it all goes black.


	2. Chapter 1

I let a scream rip from my throat as I feel the bone in my left shoulder snap clean in two.

"Don't worry, it should heal eventually. I just need a look at the bone marrow."

"You are one sick bitch Raven Darkhölme, you know that?"

"I've been told many times." She approaches me with a large syringe and jabs it into my shoulder, another cry tearing from my throat. "Oh, does that hurt the poor baby?" she mocks.

I struggle fruitlessly against the restraints holding me down on the table.

"What the fuck do you reckon?" I say through gritted teeth. "Can't you just stop torturing me? It's been two years. Haven't you done enough?"

"You think we're doing this just for our own amusement?"

"That's how it seems from here."

She shakes her head. "Silly girl. We're trying to find out what's going on inside you. We're running tests to try and figure you out."

"Two years of them?"

"It's not that easy."

She carefully fills the syringe with my bone marrow and deposits it in a test tube which she hands to Erik.

"Thankyou Raven, take her away."

She bows her head and returns to me, unlocking the restraints and leading me back downstairs to my cell.

"Wait, you aren't even going to fix my shoulder?"

"No."

"I hate you."

"And I feel no affection for you whatsoever."

She shoves me into the cell and I land hard on my arm, the deep cut on my left forearm from yesterday painfully splitting open again, blood trickling down my arm. I crawl to a corner of my cell and curl up into a ball and cry. I've been subjected to their 'tests' for two years, and I want out. I want my sister back, I need to feel loved. All I feel here is hatred and pain; too much pain. I was going to find her, and they brought me here. I never got to say goodbye to my parents, or my friends. They say they're trying to figure me out, but it couldn't take two years, could it?

Another week goes by, another test every day. My shoulder's started to heal, but I can already tell that it won't set properly. The cut on my arm looks like it's starting to get infected, so of course they had to run tests on that, too. I'm tossing a tennis ball against my cell wall with my good arm to pass the time, when I hear a commotion upstairs. I back into a corner as I hear footsteps coming down the stairs, and Raven appears in the doorway. She unlocks the door and grabs my tattered tank top, the one that I've worn since they took me, along with my tattered shorts, tugging me to my feet. I don't move, and she reveals the gun she had when they took me, and she prods me in the back.

"Move. Hands in the air."

"I can't," I protest. "My shoulder hurts too much."

She hits me in the shoulder, and another twisted scream rips from my throat. She wears gloves when she touches me, so my power has no effect on her. I hear the noise stop upstairs and strain my ears to listen.

"What do you think you're doing, Magneto?" a deep voice growls. "What have you got down there?"

"Not what, but who," Erik corrects him.

"You mean you've got someone trapped down there?" the deep voice says, a note of shock in their voice.

"I wouldn't go down there, Wolverine," Erik says. "You mightn't like what you see."

Raven prods me in the back again, and I limp up the stairs, cradling my shoulder with my free hand and feeling the blood slowly oozing out of my cut again, slowly trailing down my arm.

"Ah, Raven. Such perfect timing."

I look around and see a group of about six people in blue and gold suits in a standoff with Erik. One looks strangely familiar, but I dismiss it, more focussed on the pain in my shoulder.

"She's a kid, Magneto," the huge, muscular man who must be Wolverine says. I watch as metal claws erupt from his enormous hands. "And by the looks of it, she's in pain. What have you done to her?"

"She's different. We've been studying her, trying to figure her out."

"How long has she been here?"

"Well, you see, it's a bit hard to tell-"

"How long?" Wolverine demands, taking a step towards Magneto.

"Two years," I say quietly, my voice starting to crack. Magneto looks at me in shock, and the barrel of the gun presses harder between my shoulder blades. "They've kept me here for two years."

"You are a sick man, Magneto," Wolverine says darkly. "You're not keeping her here any longer."

"I think you'll find we are. Raven, go ahead."

I hear a click behind me, and tense myself as I realise what it is. She's just taken the safety off the gun, and I highly doubt that she's got tranquiliser darts in it this time.

"Leave now or the girl dies," she says, her chilling voice echoing throughout the room.

"You can't kill a child," Wolverine says, apparently the leader of the group.

"Watch me," Raven says, and I hear her squeezing the trigger. On instinct, I move to the side, but the bullet still digs deep into my upper right arm, and it feels like someone's driving white-hot barbed wire through it again and again. I scream and drop to my knees, fighting breaking out around me. Raven grabs me and tries to drag me away, but I spin around and face her, grabbing her exposed arm. In my burst of anger, the electric current on my body has gotten stronger and she collapses to the ground, twitching. Magneto stares at me in shock, but I charge at him and do the same, although he's expecting it, and it doesn't affect him as much. It's drained me of energy though, and I collapse, blacking out and hitting the floor.

When I wake up, I'm lying on what appears to be an operating table, covered in a crisp white sheet. My left arm feels like it's tied up, and upon inspection I find that it's in a sling. I'm dressed in a simple white shirt and shorts, and there are sterile bandages on both of my arms. I start when I hear a noise beside me, but hiss in pain when I feel a stabbing pain in my right ankle.

"Careful, kid," he says. "You got pretty messed up in there."

"What's wrong with me?"

"Broken shoulder, infected cut on your arm, sprained ankle, and a bullet wound in your other arm, along with other things. Your shoulder didn't set right though, so we had to re-break it."

I shudder, having a vague memory of that happening. "Will I be alright?"

"Yeah, the cut's got dissolvable stitches in it and so does the bullet hole, your arm's in a sling so you can't move it too much, but it's almost right now, and there's some crutches somewhere so you don't hurt your ankle any more than it is now."

"When can I get out of here?"

"Once your shoulder's better. I'll get Hank to come down and have a look at it and see if it's better. Then you can get around on crutches for another couple of days, and then you'll be right."

"Thanks…"

"Logan," he says, extending a hand that I don't take. "What do they call you?"

"Isabella," I say quietly.

"Where are you from?"

"Down south."

"So I take it you're a mutant?"

"Yeah, I noticed it a couple of years ago."

"What can you do?"

"I've got a kind of electrical charge on my skin. Anybody that touches me gets a shock. That's why I didn't touch you just then," I explain.

"I see. So what's with the hair? It looks pretty cool."

A few days after I saw Anna on TV, I noticed a jet black streak starting to appear in the front of my golden blonde hair. "It just sort of happened. I don't know why."

He nods slowly. "I'll go up and get Hank."

I nod, and he gets up out of the chair beside my bed and leaves the room. I'm hooked up to a machine that's tracking my heart rate, and the steady beeping of that is the only sound I can hear. After a few minutes a man that must be Hank enters the room. He heads straight over to my bed and helps me sit up.

"I'm Hank McCoy," he says gently. "Logan tells me you're Isabella."

"That's right," I say as he inspects my shoulder. I wince as he probes a particularly sore spot, and he apologises.

"So how old are you, Isabella?"

"Sixteen."

"So your shoulder isn't giving you too much trouble now? It doesn't hurt too much when I touch it?"

"No, not too much."

"Try moving your arm, I need to make sure it's fine and that you can use the crutches."

I swing my arm around a little bit, testing my shoulder, which doesn't hurt too much. Hank takes the sling off and injects me with anaesthetic to numb my shoulder a bit before bandaging it tightly, then hands me the crutches and helps me off the table. He leads me to the lift and we go up to what I assume to be the living room. From what I can tell, the group of people who rescued me from Magneto are all there, along with a couple of younger people, a bit older than me, and an elderly man in a wheelchair. Logan gestures to the spare seat and I ease myself into it slowly.

"Kid, we need to know who you are," Logan says finally. "So tell us. What's your name? Your full name."

"Isabella D'Ancanto."

One of the women claps her hands over her mouth and even from here I can see her start shaking. She was there when they broke me out of Magneto's lab. She was the one that looked familiar. She has a white streak in her brown hair that looks exactly like mine. She slowly removes her hands, and then it all clicks.

"Anna," I whisper, not quite believing my own eyes.

"Belle," she whispers. When I hear her voice I know it's my sister. I ignore my ankle and stand up and run to her, and she does the same. We hug each other tightly, but let go of each other suddenly and look at each other in shock.

"Nothing happened," we say together.

"Oh no, not you, too," she says sadly.

I shrug. "It started a couple of years ago."

"What are you two doing?" Logan says. "And surely your name's Marie?"

"Guys, you know I ran away from home, but I never told you that I have a sister, and that I had to leave her behind. And this is her. And my real name is Anna-Marie D'Ancanto."

"You came here two years ago," Hank says slowly.

"I left four years ago," she admits.

"You don't know how much it hurt," I say to her. "You left and I had nothing."

"I'm sorry. But we're missing the point here. I touched you and nothing happened."

"And I touched you and nothing happened."

"You know what I do, but what were you meant to do?"

"I should have given you an electric shock," I say, very confusedly.

"This doesn't make sense," she says while my mind is ticking over, trying to make connections. After a minute, I've figured it out.

"You're wrong, Anna," I say quietly. "It makes perfect sense."

"Enlighten us," Hank says, sitting forward in his chair, clearly interested.

"Anna's power works by touching her skin, the same way mine does. It's just like an equation."

"Belle, I don't like maths," Anna says lightly.

"I know; I just used it as an example. It's like an equation in the fact that it cancels out. A positive 3 cancels out a negative 3. My skin cancels out Anna's skin. If we touch each other, neither of our powers can overcome the other and they end up being cancelled out. It's simple logic."

After a moment, Hank speaks. "You know, that does actually seem plausible. If your theory is correct, then, as far as I know, you would be the only person that can touch Anna without getting hurt, and vice-versa."

"So my sister has to live life like I do?" Anna asks him angrily.

"You have to understand-" Hank begins.

"She's still a child," Anna yells. "I never wanted her to have to go through this."

"Logically she shouldn't," Hank says, looking at me. "There has never been a case of two siblings having the mutant X gene, except for twins."

"Then how did this happen?" Anna demands.

"I don't know," Hank says truthfully. "I'd have to run some tests."

"No," I say flatly. Two years of Magneto's tests and I never want to have another test taken on me again. "You can't make me do that."

"If we want to find out why you have the X gene, then we need to run tests," Hank says calmly.

"No. You're not running any tests on me," I say in a strong voice.

We leave it at that, and Anna offers to take me to my room. I follow her but swear under my breath as I put weight on my ankle, forgetting that I don't have my crutches. Anna hands them to me, and she leads me out of the lounge room and up the corridor to my bedroom. It's only small, but that's all I need. It has one smallish window opposite the door, and the walls are all painted a neutral off-white colour. There's a small wardrobe at one end of the room, a simple glass-topped desk and black leather swivel chair, and a single bed in the corner of the room with a set of sheets neatly folded on the end of the bed. Anna and I silently make the bed, then sit on it and just look at each other.

"Why did this have to happen to you?" Anna finally says.

"I don't know," I reply softly.

"I want to know why this has happened to you," she says quietly, "and to do that we need to run the tests."

"I know that's what you want, but I just can't do it. I can't go through that again. Not yet, at least."

They say time heals all wounds. I just pray to God that it heals mine.


	3. Chapter 2

I follow Anna to her room, and see that it's pretty similar to her room at home. It reminds me that I want to go home, to get some of my things.

"Anna, can we go home?" I ask timidly.

"This is my home now, Belle" she says kindly.

"I mean our real home. I want to get some of my things and then come back."

"What do you want to get?"

"My photos, some clothes, my laptop, just stuff like that."

"I'll talk to someone about it. I was going to come back, you know. I wanted to get some more of my things, and I needed to see you. I missed you. But I never wanted to see you like that. You looked so helpless, and you were in so much pain. But what happened to your hair?"

"You mean the streak? After I saw you on TV a couple of years ago, it just kind of gradually appeared."

"Interesting, it's just like mine." The conversation stops for a minute until Anna picks it up again. "Here, have these." She hands me a pair of thin black gloves. "You'll need them."

I don't put them on yet, and Anna isn't wearing her white ones. "Anna, how long was I out for after you got me?"

"Belle, you were in an induced coma for a week. We needed to make sure you were OK."

"Well at least you told me. So when do you think we can go home?"

"I can ask now, but do you want something else to wear? I've got some of my old clothes in here that should fit you."

She hands me a pair of pale blue skinny jeans with holes ripped in the knees which I remember her wearing once before, a camo print muscle tank, black hi-tops, and a black hoodie. The hoodie's a bit big, but aside from that they fit me pretty well. We slip our gloves on and go back to the lounge room and Anna chats with Logan about going back home for a bit while I meet some of the other people there. I talk to a couple of people, and then a young man approaches me and shakes my hand. It's quite cold, and he explains.

"I'm Bobby Drake, Anna's boyfriend," he says. "They call me Iceman." To prove that he freezes the glass of water I'm holding. "So what do they call you, aside from Belle?"

"I don't have another name."

"Well why don't you show me what you can do?"

"You mean use my power on you?"

"Yeah, it can't be that bad."

"Touching my skin gives people electric shocks."

"Why don't you touch me then?" He looks at me curiously. "Come on, I kissed your sister and lived to tell the tale."

I sigh and slowly peel off a glove, and Bobby holds out his hand. I've discovered that it's not so bad if I'm calm, and I'm fairly relaxed right now, so it shouldn't be that bad. I slowly raise my hand, and then touch the tips of his fingers. He flinches and twitches, shaking his hand out and rubbing it.

"I take back what I said, that actually hurt," he finally says.

"That's not even bad. When I'm angry or scared, it's worse. If I'm completely relaxed, then it's not as strong as that, because I was nervous, but if I'm asleep or unconscious, then there's nothing."

"Belle," Anna laughs, "please don't kill my boyfriend."

"I asked for it," Bobby says. "How about Elektra?"

"Sounds pretty cool," I say, nodding.

"Any of you guys got matches?" Logan calls. "I'm trying to light the fire, but we're out."

I walk over to the fire and crouch next to Logan. I hold my hand near the newspaper that Logan's arranged in between the logs and click my fingers, igniting a spark that lights the paper, quickly spreading to the logs. Logan looks at me in surprise and I grin.

"I double as a firelighter," I say mischievously.

"I heard you and Anna want to go home for a bit," he says seriously. I nod slowly, hoping he'll say yes. "How long do you want to stay there for?"

"I don't know. Maybe a couple of days?"

Logan nods slowly this time. "I don't see a problem with that. You can leave today if you want, but be back within five days or we're coming to get you, got it?"

"Thanks, Logan," I say with a small smile. I go back to Anna and we go to her room for a minute so she can get a couple of things she needs, and then we head out the door after saying goodbye to everyone.

We get in her car, a gunmetal grey Chevy Trailblazer, and drive out of the estate. We make a pit stop at a Burger King and fill up the tank of the car, then reach the highway and speed off south. After about six hours we arrive, finally seeing our childhood home for the first time in years. We pull up outside the house and see that our parents are at home. We get out and the front door opens, and our parents are standing in the doorway, shock etched into their faces.

"Anna? Belle?" Mum says.

"It's us, Mum," Anna says quietly.

Mum runs down the steps and carefully hugs us, and Dad does the same. We go inside and talk about what happened and then head up to our rooms. I pull a charcoal grey duffel bag out of my wardrobe and pull the photos and writing off my walls and put them in a sealed box and put it in my bag. I pack some clothes and shoes, and a few more personal things, and get my guitar as well. It's a Maton that Anna bought me for my birthday five years ago. I grab my laptop too. It's a MacBook Pro, and I have some Sony wireless DJ headphones too. Mum and Dad bought those for me. I don't have my phone though. It was in my pocket when I was taken, and they destroyed it as soon as they found it. Anna walks into the room and we sit on my bed. She puts a gentle arm around my shoulder and pulls me in for a warm hug. I rest my head on her chest and hear her familiar heartbeat, the one I listened to when I was little, when anything when wrong, or I was upset, Anna would hold me, and tell me everything was going to be OK.

"You know, I've missed this," she says softly, "being able to hug someone without worrying if it'll put them in a coma. And I've missed you."

Mum calls up the stairs to us then, telling us that dinner's ready. Anna rushes downstairs, and I rush as much as I can on crutches, and we sit down at the table to eat. Mum's made lasagne, our favourite meal. We eat ravenously, me because I haven't had a proper meal for two years because Burger King doesn't count, and Anna I'm assuming because she's missed Mum's cooking. When we finish, we go to the lounge room and watch a few movies, and we talk while they play. Anna's slouched in a beanbag, and I'm lying in her lap as she plays with my hair, braiding it and undoing it over and over again. Finally Mum speaks.

"Anna, surely you had something wrong with you and you couldn't touch people?" she asks.

"Belle has the same thing," she explains, turning to her. "We sort of, cancel each other out. I can touch her, and she can touch me, that's it."

"Did you ever think about that cure thing that came out?" Dad asks.

I feel Anna stiffen and look up at her nervously. "I thought about it, and I took it. But it didn't feel right, and I realised that it wasn't what I wanted. One of my friends had made a sort of antidote to the cure, and I took that, so now I'm back to normal."

"I'd hardly say normal," Dad mutters. He never really understood what was going on, but we forgive him. I tried to explain about how the male carries the gene, but he wouldn't hear a word of it.

"Fine, I'm back to mutant then, happy?" Anna says.

He sighs and nods and we go back to the movie. We're watching The Blind Side, one of my favourite movies, even though I don't understand gridiron. The movie finishes and we all go to bed. After a few hours, I still haven't been able to sleep, and I go to Anna's room and knock softly on the door. I hear her gentle voice inviting me in and I slowly open the door and shut it behind me. She's sitting on her bed looking out the window, the glow of the moonlight bathing her face. I sit beside her and we both look out the window. Anna's the first to break the peaceful silence.

"Couldn't sleep?" she whispers.

I shake my head. "I couldn't stop thinking about what happened."

"You mean when we came to get you?"

I nod. "How did you know where I was?"

"Professor X has a machine called Cerebro. It tracks all the mutants on the planet, and he found you with Magneto and Mystique. He could sense your pain and your sadness, so we came to free you."

"Why?"

"That's just what we do."

"Who's 'we'?"

"We're called the X-Men. Professor X is in charge, and our job is to help anyone who's in trouble."

"So you didn't know it was me when you got me out of there?"

"I thought you looked familiar, but I had no idea it was you."

"I thought you looked familiar, too." I pause awkwardly. "So what did you say about the cure?"

"I wanted to be able to kiss my boyfriend without hurting him. I thought I was doing the right thing, that I had to do it, but I wasn't happy. Hank figured out a way to reverse the effects, and I was the first person to use it. We wanted a way to help people that were forced to take the cure against their will, and wanted their powers back."

"What about what happened two years ago, when you were on the top of the Statue of Liberty? What was that all about?"

"Magneto, the man that took you away, kidnapped me and was using me to power a machine that would turn ordinary people into mutants. He wanted to turn all the politicians into mutants so they couldn't pass an anti-mutant law. Only a very powerful mutant would be able to power the machine, and he knew that. His power would have been able to power it, but he also knew that it would weaken whoever powered it. It would, eventually, kill them. He transferred his powers to me, and then used me to power it. After that, I got the streak in my hair. How did you get that streak in your hair?"

"A few days after all that happened to you, it started appearing. It looked like this after a week, and it's never faded. It looks just like yours."

We sit in silence for a few minutes, then I lean into her, and she hugs me.

"I missed you so much, Anna. I thought I was never going to see you again."

"Belle, I was always going to come back to you. You are the light in my life, and I couldn't bear it there without you."

"How do you live like this?" I ask, looking up at her. "How can you live your life without touching anyone?"

"With great difficulty," she admits. "I always have to wear gloves, and you do, too. We have to be so careful."

"But how can you have a boyfriend if you can't touch him?"

"It's hard, but we still love each other."

"Do you still love me?"

She gently grabs my shoulders and turns me to face her, and I look right into her eyes.

"Unconditionally."


	4. Chapter 3

I finally fall asleep, in my own bed, and sleep dreamlessly. I wake to a ray of sunlight shining annoyingly in my eye. I sit up and stretch, and go downstairs to make myself some breakfast. Anna told me last night that we're leaving today, because it's too dangerous for us to be away from the X-Mansion for too long. Anna's still asleep, but Mum and Dad are downstairs, so I tell them our plans. They're about to go to work, but they give me an envelope to give to Anna, and then say goodbye to me. They leave, and Anna and I are the only ones left in the house. I switch on the TV and go to the kitchen. I make up some pancake batter and heat up some butter in a frying pan, and after a few minutes there's the delicious smell of fresh pancakes wafting through the house, coupled with the warm sound of sizzling food. Anna comes downstairs just after I've finished the first batch, and she sneaks one off the pile when she thinks I'm not looking. I snicker softly when I hear her swear under her breath as it burns her fingers. I hand her a plate form the cupboard and she takes it, spreading maple syrup on her pancakes. She takes a bite and grins.

"Still as good a cook as ever, Belle," she says appreciatively.

"I try," I say, taking the last pancake while I cook the second batch. I eat it plain, and pretty soon the second batch is ready too. I take two from the pile and spread them with jam, wolfing them down as the last batch sizzles away.

"Anna, what do they call you?" I ask her between mouthfuls.

"You mean my mutant name?" I nod. "Rogue."

"Why do they call you that? The others make a bit more sense. Storm controls weather, Iceman freezes things, and Wolverine resembles a wolverine with those claws. Why are you Rogue?"

"Because I am a bit of a rogue. I ran away from home, I snuck into Logan's car to get a lift, I've always been a bit of a rebel, you know that."

"Now that I think about it, it does make sense. So what exactly is your ability?"

"By touching a person's skin, I absorb their powers, their life force, and their memories. If I hold onto them long enough, it can kill them. But they can be removed, so I'm not stuck with them inside my head. So what exactly is your ability?"

"If somebody touches my skin, they get an electric shock. The charge covers my whole body, but it can't be transferred through anything. So if I was holding, say, a metal pole, at the same time as somebody else, they wouldn't get a shock, because the charge clings to my body. The strength of it depends on how I'm feeling. If I'm scared or angry then it's stronger, it's weaker if I'm relaxed, and there's nothing if I'm asleep or unconscious."

"Can it work as a sort of chain reaction?"

"What do you mean?"

"Remember that science show that had at school and they got a bunch of people to stand in a line and one got a small electric shock and it went down the line? Can you do that?"

"I don't know," I say, realising how little I know about this. "Probably not. I think the charge stays on my skin, and it can't travel through anything."

By then the last batch of pancakes is ready, and we halve them and I remember the envelope our parents gave me. I hand it to her and she opens it, pulling out a small wad of money and some papers. I watch her eyes as they scan over the papers, slowly widening in shock.

"Anna, what is it?" I ask, laying my hand on her arm.

She pulls out the last sheet of paper and reads it quickly.

"They're leaving," she says simply.

"What do you mean 'they're leaving'?"

"They said that Magneto and Mystique came looking for them a few days ago, so they've changed their names, disowned us because they thought we were never coming back, and they're leaving the country. But they did leave us a thousand dollars to share."

"So they're saving their own skins?"

"Pretty much."

We eat the rest of our breakfast in silence, and then take our bags out to the car. We go back inside and pack a bag with something to eat and drink on the way back. I go back to my room and pull up one of the floorboards and pull out the tin hidden underneath it. I go back out to the car and put it in my bag, and then head back to the kitchen to help Anna. When we've packed enough for the ride home, we get in the car and drive away. Anna speeds down the highway and we arrive back at the X-Mansion after another six hour journey. We get our bags out of the back and go inside, taking our things to our rooms. I pull the tin out of my bag and open it, rummaging through it until I find what I'm looking for: a simple gold choker that Anna bought me a couple of weeks before she left. I clasp it behind my neck and go down to the lounge room, where the others are all talking. The man in the wheelchair approaches me and talks to me, discussing my abilities. We talk for about half an hour and then he leaves the room. Logan follows him, and returns a few minutes later, charging into the room.

"The Brotherhood are attacking a house down south. We don't know if anyone's in it, but it's slowly getting destroyed, and we need to stop them and find out why." The group stands, and Logan gives the instructions. "We need the whole team. Belle, you're staying here."

"Why can't she come with us?" Anna asks indignantly.

"I'm too big a risk to take," I say. "I can't control myself. I don't even know what I can do."

"But-" Anna starts

"She's right," Logan says. "We've got to get down there quickly if we want to catch them."

The group scatters, and Anna returns a few minutes later, dressed in her blue and gold suit.

"Nice suit," I say.

She laughs. "Thanks. Maybe you'll even get one someday. Listen, we'll be back in a few hours. Don't leave the house, don't burn down the house, and don't disturb the professor."

"Because I'd really burn down a house," I laugh.

She presses a small black device into the palm of my hand, closing my fingers over it. "Any messages we send will go to Professor X, and to you."

"Can I send messages to you?"

"Yes, but only if you absolutely have to. We shouldn't need to send anything too important, so don't worry about it too much."

We quickly hug each other, and then she leaves. I peek out the curtains and watch as a jet takes off and flies away. I'm now on my own. Anna told me that this is a school for the gifted, and that there are normally a lot more people around, but they've gone home for a few weeks for a holiday and don't get back for another few days. I decide to go back to my room and unpack my bag. I fill the wardrobe with my clothes and shoes, make the bed, and stick up the photos and writing from my old room. I grab my guitar and laptop and go back to the lounge room, plonking myself down in a plush armchair. The communicator Anna gave me is quietly crackling away in the background, but I don't dare put on my headphones in case they do send something important. I flip open my laptop and login to Facebook. It's the first time since they took me that I've used it, and there are plenty of messages waiting for me, from my friends wondering where I am, and some of Anna's friends wondering where she is. I decide not to answer them, since I know full well that Anna at least had Facebook, so she mustn't use it anymore. I look around and see what's been going on, then logoff and play computer games for a couple of hours. The communicator comes to life and I hear Storm's calm voice saying that they've arrived. I go back to my game. After another hour or so, Storm sends another message saying that they're leaving. I'm bored now, so I unlock my guitar case and pull it out, gently strumming the strings, getting a feel for it again. After a few minutes, I feel confident with it, and start playing a few different songs. I'm halfway through 'Wake Me Up' by Avicii when they get back. I see Anna's face and immediately put down my guitar and run to her. She looks like she's in shock, and she doesn't speak.

"Anna, what's wrong?" I ask her. When she doesn't reply, I turn to the others. "What's wrong with her?"

"Belle, the house we went to got destroyed. It was your house. The Brotherhood were trying to get to your family. They'd been there before, and we think they were looking for you," Bobby says, coming over to us and putting his hands on Anna's shoulders, gently shaking her. Her eyes come into focus, and tears start welling up in them.

"Belle, they're trying to get to us," she sobs. "How can we be safe?"

"We can never be safe," I say quietly. "But we can always fight."

She looks at me and our eyes connect, and we hug each other tightly. The world we grew up in is now destroyed, with absolutely nothing left for us to salvage from the wreckage. Anna gently opens my hands and closes my fingers over a small metal object. I unfurl them and see my battered old Swiss Army knife sitting on my palm. I slip it into my pocket and hug Anna again. I still can't believe that we've found each other again.

The others slip away, and Anna does too, to take off her suit, and comes back wearing a pair of black sweats and her favourite green t-shirt. I dash up to my room and change, putting on my black sweats and my favourite orange t-shirt. I return to the lounge room and she grins. She spots the guitar and raises an eyebrow.

"You remember how to play?" she asks.

I grin back. "Sure do."

"Play something for me," she says. "I've missed hearing your voice."

"What do you want to hear?" I ask, picking up the guitar and resting it on my knee.

She deliberates for a moment. "You choose."

I think for a moment, and begin to strum the familiar chords of 'Sister Don't Cry' by Collective Soul, the words flowing, and when I finish, I notice a small crowd in the doorway watching in silence. I blush, and Anna laughs.

"It would appear that you remember how to play, but just not how brilliant you are," she says admirably.

"That's some voice," Bobby says, shaking his head. "How long have you been doing that?"

"Since I was eleven."

"Hang on, how old are you?" Logan asks me.

"Sixteen," I reply.

He nods, and leaves the room. The others trail off after him, leaving just Anna and I alone again. After a minute, she too stands and walks towards the door, but pauses before she leaves.

"I am coming back," she says.

"I know," I reply. "There isn't anywhere else we can go."

She grimaces. "Don't remind me."

I take my things back to my room and return to the lounge room and simply sit in front of the fire, watching the flames as they flicker and die out, then bloom once again. The others return, but do not question me as I sit unmoving in front of the fire. They leave after about an hour to have something to eat, and ask me if I want any, but I shake my head. Anna comes back after a couple of hours with a small plate of pasta and sits it next to me, then sits on my other side, staring at the fire as I do.

"You have to eat something, Belle," she says after a few minutes.

"Not hungry," I mumble.

"I know you are," she says, looking at me.

I turn to her. "How?"

"I've got a bit of you in me, remember?"

I do remember. The first time she realised she had her gift was when she touched me. Neither of us realised what it was until later. It was when I was eight, and a boy at school had been bullying me. She comforted me, and kissed my forehead, and I fainted. After it kept happening, she realised what it was.

"You told me that you could get rid of the people in your head," I say.

"Yes, that's right," she confirms.

"Then why didn't you take me out?"

"Because then I wouldn't have had anything to hold onto."


End file.
